The present invention relates to a vehicle lamp and more particularly to an automobile marker lamp or a dummy lamp such as a garnish provided in a position adjacent to the automobile marker lamp.
A typical automobile marker lamp normally has a lamp chamber formed with a lamp body and a lens disposed in front of the lamp body, so that light from a light source bulb in the lamp chamber is diffusion-irradiated forward.
The aforesaid diffusion irradiation is effected by dividing the inner surface of the lamp body into a plurality of reflective surface elements or dividing the inner surface of the lens into a plurality of lens elements. Since the diffusion irradiation is required to diffuse light in the vertical and horizontal directions in view of light distribution of the lamp, however, each of the aforesaid reflective surfaces elements or lens elements has heretofore been provided in the form of a convex element (like a fish eye element) or a concave element.
Such a conventional vehicle lamp has posed a problem in that desired light distribution performance is hardly obtainable and that the lamp lacks neat external appearance when it is seen from the outside.
More specifically, there has been produced a problem arising from the fact that the desired light distribution performance is hardly obtainable from the conventional vehicle lamp when the convex or concave elements are formed as the reflective surface elements because the wall thickness of the central portion of each reflective surface element in the lamp body greatly differs from that of the peripheral portion (corner portion in particular) thereof, which results in lessening the flow properties of molten resin when the reflective surface element is molded, thus hampering the formation of the reflective surface element with precision.
In such a case as stated above, though the substantially central portion of each reflective surface element serves as a luminous portion and lights like a luminous spot because of the reflected light (reflected light of light from the light source when the lamp is turned on or reflected light of light from the outside when the lamp is turned off) when the lamp is seen from the front side of the lamp, the luminous portion is simply moved in the same direction (or reverse direction) as the viewpoint moves when the lamp observing angle is changed from the elevational view of the lamp and even when the viewpoint is changed in direction, since the cross sectional configuration of the reflective surface element has a curve having convex (or concave) curvature in both vertical and horizontal directions. The problem in this case is that the lamp lacks variation in appearance when the lamp observing angle is changed, thus lacking design novelty.
Another problem is that even when a convex or concave element is formed as the lens element, the desired light distribution performance is hardly obtainable because the wall thickness of the central portion of each lens element in the lens greatly differs from that of the peripheral portion (comer portion in particular) thereof, which results in lessening the flow properties of molten resin when the lens is molded, thus hampering the formation of the lens element with precision.
Even in this case, though the substantially central portion of each lens element serves as a luminous portion and lights like a luminous spot because of the reflected light on the inner surface of the lens when the lamp is seen from the front side of the lamp, the luminous portion is simply moved in the same direction (or reverse direction) as the viewpoint moves when the lamp observing angle is changed from the angle as seen from the front side of the lamp and even when the viewpoint is changed in direction, since the cross sectional configuration of the reflective surface element has a curve having convex (or concave) curvature in both vertical and horizontal directions. The problem is that the lamp lacks variation in appearance when the lamp observing angle is changed, thus lacking design novelty.